Gaiman in the Graveyard

I’ve read so many Neil Gaiman books, it still amazes me how versatile a writer he is. From his roots in The Sandman graphic novels, to his epic American Gods and the unofficial sequel Anansi Boys, all the way to his more “youth-oriented” work like OtherWorld, M is for Magic, and of course, Coraline, he’s just shown such a rich imagination and a mastery at storytelling. In The Graveyard Book, Gaiman (accompanied with art by frequent collaborator Dave McKean) once again proves how good an author he is as he tells the story of a boy raised in a graveyard by ghosts.


The book begins with a murder. A father, mother, and their daughter are killed by a figure known only as “the man Jack”. Unfortunately for the man Jack, the baby boy is somehow able to escape him. This toddler ends up in the neighboring graveyard and is adopted by a Mr. and Mrs. Owens, who never could conceive a child when they were alive. Over the course of time, the boy (whom they name Nobody or Bod) is educated by the various spirits and ghosts who reside in the graveyard. They’ve granted him sme supernatural abilities to make sure that Bod is protected by harmful creatures such as the ghouls who reside in the evil city of Ghûlheim. Silas, the guardian of the graveyard, provides a counterbalance to the spirits as he teaches Bod about the humanity that most of them have forgotten.

Young Bod eventually makes friends with a living girl named Scarlett Amber Perkins, but their curious friendship and a frightening incident involving “The Sleer” forces her family away, leaving Bod alone with his ghost family once more. As he grows up, more responsibility is placed on Bod by Silas and his teacher, Ms. Lupescu while the man Jack and his associates seem to have found a way to finish something they should have taken care of years ago.

The Graveyard Book has elements of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book in the sense that Bod mirrors Kipling’s more famous Mowgli. Just as Mowgli grew up in the jungle protected by Baloo while evading the dangerous Shere Khan, so does Bod grow in the graveyard with Silas and his ghostly parents, the Owenses. Every chapter moves forward two years in Bod’s growth, eventually leading to adolescence and his inevitable need to be with his own kind. Though Gaiman acknowledges these parallels, his piece isn’t limited to merely being a mirror to the earlier work. His ghouls in the chapter “The Hounds of God” are downright terrifying in their attempt to seduce and corrupt Bod into joining them. I found that chapter disturbing enough, can you imagine what kids (Gaiman’s target audience for this book) would think?

In the chapter “Danse Macabre”, the author really goes to town as both the living and the spirits participate in a bizarre tradition wherein they interact with one another. Tht’s was probably my favorite part of the book since it seemed like something Gaiman used to do on a regular basis on his seminal The Sandman graphic novels on a regular basis. Yes, I still miss Gaiman weaving his way around characters like Dream, Death, Calliope, and the rest of them. But it’s also nice to know that his imagination continues to develop new characters for us to root for and to cheer on like Bod and his ghostly friends.